


kiss me & tell me you love me

by moonlitserenades



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, listen i just love them a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24529909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlitserenades/pseuds/moonlitserenades
Summary: It’s hard enough to let himself have acquaintances. Nott is the first person who manages to worm her way under his defenses enough to become a friend, and the rest of the Nein, despite his very best efforts to stop them, follow soon after.He is absolutely not prepared for Mollymauk Tealeaf.
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 6
Kudos: 202





	kiss me & tell me you love me

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime in the nebulous space between 2x18 and 2x25 (which is where I have left off, as I am procrastinating on breaking my own heart).

When Caleb was small, he’d been enthralled with his parents’ soul marks. His father’s was a tiny bird, wings spread in flight, on the most vulnerable part of his inner wrist. His mother’s, a blooming vine, also wrapped around her wrist. He would run his fingers over them and ask them to tell him the story, and his parents would always, always oblige. They would tell him how their friendship had developed slowly, how at first neither one of them had realized that they were falling in love. How his father had realized first, and had thought all hope was lost when no soul mark appeared, but how he knew he preferred having her friendship to nothing at all. How, one day, they’d been having dinner together, and he’d said something to make her laugh--something small and silly and unimportant--and she’d realized in one, lightning strike of a moment: _oh._

How the marks had appeared at that very moment. 

For a while, Caleb had loved the idea. As he grew, though, his fantasies had shifted, captured by spellbooks and ink and Soltryce Academy. It had become an obsession, and Astrid had been entirely unexpected. He’d almost completely forgotten romance when they met; when she’d kissed him over her spell scrolls in the library one evening it had nearly knocked him off his feet. But it hadn’t even occurred to him to look for a soul mark.

Later, after everything had gone to hell, he remembered again what he had ruined, and he’d wished he could forget all of it. The memories had burned to cinders that choked his heart, and for a long time, he couldn’t bear to think of soul marks at all.

It’s hard enough to let himself have acquaintances. Nott is the first person who manages to worm her way under his defenses enough to become a friend, and the rest of the Nein, despite his very best efforts to stop them, follow soon after. 

He is absolutely not prepared for Mollymauk Tealeaf. 

Molly is everything that Caleb is not. Bold. Impulsive. Colorful.

(And kind, genuinely so. Unexpectedly thoughtful. Empathetic.)

He makes Caleb anxious, at first. He doesn’t know what to make of him, how to interact with him. He doesn’t even realize that he trusts him until the first time he reaches for Molly’s shoulders as he sends Frumpkin scouting ahead. When he comes back into himself a few minutes later, Molly’s got one hand over his as they walk, making sure he won’t lose his grip. 

“ _Danke,_ ” he mutters, and Molly pats his hand twice and doesn’t say anything back.

The whole rest of the day, Caleb feels as though there’s an electric current running up and down his arms.

He doesn’t say anything, though.

He doesn’t know what it means.

Finding out that Molly’s been lying to them should not be a comforting thing. It should feel like a betrayal.

But Caleb knows about secrets. 

He waits a while before he says anything. But the night after he tells Nott and Beau about his parents, he finds that he can’t sleep--can’t stop thinking about the fact that telling them had been, blackmail or not, his own choice in the end. And that Molly hadn’t been given that choice.

He gets up and walks down the hall to Molly and Fjord’s room, and is about to knock on the door when he realizes that it’s nearly two in the morning. He waffles for a second, then pulls out a well-loved piece of copper wire, pointing toward the side of the room he knows is Molly’s. Before he can talk himself out of it, he whispers, “Are you awake?”

No reply, and just as Caleb is about to give up, Molly opens the door and slips soundlessly through it.

“Hi,” he manages, suddenly and immediately regretting this decision.

“Hi.” Molly’s brow furrows, just slightly; Caleb’s not one to just show up for a visit at a normal hour, much less in the middle of the night. “What’s up?”

“I,” Caleb begins, shifting his weight awkwardly, “I was hoping to talk to you. Can I buy you a drink?”

“That’s nice and ominous,” Molly says, quite cheerfully. “But I’ll never turn down free alcohol. Let’s do it.”

Caleb’s throat has gone very dry, so he just nods and heads wordlessly toward the stairs again.

The innkeeper is not thrilled to be woken from her half-asleep state by Caleb’s stuttering requests, but he tips generously enough to make up for it and buys a bottle so that they don’t have to keep waking her.

They drink in silence for a while, Caleb struggling to drum up his courage, before Molly says, “Not that I’m not loving this midnight rendezvous, but it kind of seems like this is not actually what you had in mind.”

“No,” Caleb admits. “I...I was thinking, and...I wanted to apologize to you.”

“O...kay. Not where I thought that was going. Why?”

“What we did, with Jester’s spell. We shouldn’t have.” He tears his eyes away from the gouge in the worn wood of the bar to meet Molly’s eyes. “It wasn’t fair to you.”

Molly twitches one shoulder. “I don’t know. I didn’t love it, but I understand. I don’t hold it against anyone.”

Caleb shakes his head. “Still. I want you to know that I trust you.” His hands are starting to shake, so he clasps them around his tankard, breathing slowly. “I want to tell you something.”

When he replies, Molly’s voice is very gentle. “Okay.”

So Caleb does. He talks for minutes that float by and pile on top of each other like ash. He talks softly, so softly that the now lightly snoozing innkeeper could not possibly hear the things that he admits. And Molly listens. 

“So you see,” he says finally, almost a half an hour later, “I, of all people, should never have invaded your privacy like that. And I would understand if this...if this changed things for you.”

“Changed things for me.” Molly’s voice is carefully neutral. “In what way?”

“If you wanted to...tell the others. If you felt that I could no longer be trusted. I would understand.”

“Caleb,” Molly breathes. “Listen to me. What happened to you was not your fault. This changes nothing.” And he leans in, very slowly, and kisses him. 

Caleb gasps against Molly’s lips, hands finding his shoulders and clutching the fabric of his soft linen shirt. Giddiness rises, sudden and buoyant in his chest as Molly wraps his arms around his waist, pulling him closer. He doesn’t recognize the warmth blooming in his chest for what it is until he pulls back to breathe and sees the red imprint of a small flame appearing on Molly’s collarbone.

“Molly,” he says, breathless, just as Molly reaches out to brush his fingers, soft as a whisper, over the single peacock feather that has just appeared over Caleb’s heart.


End file.
